


Free To Clutch Shackles

by Miandraden1



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: A bad mom, Amanda is a mom, BUT WAIT FOR IT, Changed the summary for better PR, Character Study, Connor Deserves Happiness, Does this count as...?, He won't get it, I'm sorry I need to write this, Machine Connor Appreciation Club, No Beta, Poor Connor, What even is deviancy?, but - Freeform, hank is a dad, i think, multi-chapter, oh connor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21830767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miandraden1/pseuds/Miandraden1
Summary: Unlike a set of aquatic species, this one was not resistant to prolonged deprivation of water. And while the RK800 prototype knew this immediately, it didn’t understand what it meant for the Gourami until further input made it realize the fish was gasping. It was a defense mechanism, the fish was attempting to breathe, and if its situation didn’t change soon, it was going to die. The fish was unimportant to its objective… but helping wouldn’t interfere with the mission, either. Connor placed it in the tank. Wasn’t it too late? Would it live? Its system asked, and the RK800 observed. The fish fumbled a little but swam steadily away. The fish was healthy. It would live.01001111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101The RK800 Connor model had many reasons to believe deviancy was wrong.This is an exploration of those reasons and the many thoughts that make up Machine Connor.
Relationships: Connor & Amanda, Father & Son, Hank Anderson & Connor, Mother & Son
Comments: 10
Kudos: 34





	1. First Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> Again, some ideas people just don't write and what is a girl supposed to do?

The RK800 Connor Android did not know why its systems focused on the fish. From what it could tell of its functions, they were constantly trying to collect information to have an accurate understanding of any given situation. The fish, however, (it quickly understood crouching over it) was irrelevant to its mission.

Still, it picked the fish up for a closer inspection. Its analysis based on the blue stripes that covered the orange body and the shape of the creature quickly concluded that it was a Dwarf Gourami. Unlike a set of aquatic species, this one was not resistant to prolonged deprivation of water. And while the RK800 prototype knew this immediately, it didn’t understand what it meant for the Gourami until further input made it realize the fish was gasping. It was a defense mechanism, the fish was attempting to breathe, and if its situation didn’t change soon, it was going to die. The fish was unimportant to its objective… but helping wouldn’t interfere with the mission, either. Connor placed it in the tank. Wasn’t it too late? Would it live? Its system asked, and the RK800 observed. The fish fumbled a little but swam steadily away. The fish was healthy. It would live.

His system worked well with this development.

“This is Daniel, the coolest android in the world! Say hi, Daniel!”

“Hello!”

The deviant’s name was Daniel.

This was the relevant piece of information to obtain from the video. That, and the girl seemed to have confused her relationship with the android as genuine. The treatment, his social relations programming informed him, was akin to that of a sibling. This confused the RK800. Human children of Emma Phillips’ age were already capable of understanding multiple complex concepts, and the difference between androids and humans was simple. Humans were alive, and androids were not. Connor determined that she was still liable to anthropomorphism, as all humans were.

Connor scanned the rest of the room. Headphones. It held them up to its audio receptors, and immediately it understood they were too loud for a young girl. It didn’t even let the analysis program tell it what song it was, or such other useless data. Connor understood now: the hostage didn’t hear the gunshots. She was taken by surprise from her room.

Emma Phillips could be feeling betrayed, it mused.

Then the android walked into the living room and noticed the two bodies. One was a police officer, first responder, and, its reconstruction software made it aware, was shot in front of her. Connor picked up a small colorful boot. She was hurt. The other body belonged to her father, laid out in such a way that his injuries were clearly visible. She wouldn’t have missed them.

The deviant had done this because it was going to be replaced.

The family was going to have dinner.

Connor paused before pushing back the curtain towards the pool area, and it decided to make use of the flexibility afforded to its model.

When it did step into the night to negotiate, it didn’t surprise him how erratic the deviant was. Shooting another android in the shoulder, when it held a hostage? Unnecessary, ineffective, and even inconvenient. Each shot it took meant it had fewer bullets to threaten with. Still, Connor put its negotiation module and social relations programming to work, knowing most deviants, as Cyberlife has informed, liked to emulate human emotion. Connor pretended to understand then. As if replacing their housekeeping model wasn’t the most logical decision the family could take. As if Daniel’s supposed fear of loneliness meant anything in the face of its owner’s convenience. As if the deviant hadn’t gone against every principle that governed an android’s existence.

His sensors picked up, amidst the helicopter’s interference and the deviant’s glitched rambling, the weak breathing of the police officer on the floor. The synthetic arm that was part of its body stretched, as if possessing its own processing module, towards the prone figure. Connor kneeled over to examine the man, saw his lips twitching open and closed, like the fish gasping for life, his eyes intent, however, on a point before him. Connor followed the man’s gaze to the problem. A bullet wound on his arm, likely caused by the deviant, surrounded by the dark corrupted red of human blood.

The notification of its damage, pulsing small in the corner of its interface, brightened. The slight discomfort from the exposed cables on his arm, the irregular feedback, barely processed as his system focused on the mission. How fragile life was, Connor thought.

Would this affect the mission? Connor glanced at the deviant who stood clutching the girl with a gun to her head, yes, but it was performing well enough to hold them both steady. Connor looked down again, and his social relations programming said _resigned and hopeless_.

“He’s losing blood,” Connor said, and remembered that Daniel was malfunctioning. “If we don’t get him to a hospital, he’s going to die.”

Daniel tilted his head as if it didn’t understand why Connor was explaining this. “All humans die eventually.” The deviant said. “What does it matter if this one dies now?” Connor felt the new input change the direction of its calculations sharply.

“I’m going to apply a tourniquet,” Connor informed, as his negotiations module demanded he did. He gently pushed the officer back into a suitable position.

Blam! Ping! Light. This is what Connor’s receptors stated. “Don’t touch him!” Daniel said, now apparently angry. Connor looked into the deviant’s yellow LED. “Touch him and I kill you.” Connor took all these factors into an analysis that lasted less than a second but that, had he been human, he would have described as a small eternity.

Just how _defective_ were this deviant’s systems? “You can’t kill me.” Connor loosened his tie quickly. “I’m not alive.”

Connor didn’t know if that broken machine considered shooting, and Connor had absolutely none of its processing power on that possibility. For the moment it took to apply the tourniquet, it focused simply on the moment the probability of the officer’s survival rose to an acceptable 83%.

Connor refocused on the mission.

The probability of resolving the situation with a stand-down had risen to the nineties percent when the deviant asked for a car. Like a flash, Connor’s processor brought up data on its damaged arm, on the video input of the bullet striking the floor close to the bleeding man, and it chanced a glance at the thirium that rested on the girl’s skin. Thirium, that was toxic for humans in prolonged exposure. This android, that asked “what does it matter?” on not only life but human life. This deviant, that after asking “what does it matter?” worked towards allowing a man to die. This machine that shot at anything that moved against its convenience. This _defective thing_ that Emma Phillips had treated as a brother, that disrupted her life, that murdered her father, and was threatening to kill her.

Connor thought of Amanda, smiling at him for the first time, and showing him her roses. Roses of code. Amanda, pointing out the broken, useless ones, gone yellow and black, and cutting them. Amanda, and her garden, both so harmonious that any human, subjective as they are, would say they are unbelievably beautiful.

Connor didn’t trust Daniel an hour with Emma Phillips’s life, driving away. Connor didn’t trust Daniel with Emma’s life for an instant, standing there.

Life mattered. This thing didn’t.

The RK800 considered the features that made it special.

Connor shot Daniel on the forehead. Central processor.


	2. First Theories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter, but early.

When the RK800 found Lieutenant Hank Anderson, it thought he would be an opportune subject for analyzing human behavior.

“You know where you can stick your instructions?”

“No. Where?”

The lieutenant leaned back with an expression that escaped catalogue but had many indicators of negativity. The RK800 wondered why he lacked a more through database on human phrases. Connor, now unsure of how to maintain a positive relationship, considered his options. Crime scenes tended to be time sensitive.

“You know what? I’ll buy you one for the road. What do you say?”

The lieutenant didn’t answer. Its negotiation module whispered (and it would say it did so urgently, had it been a he), “press the advantage!”

“Bartender!” The android called, secure now in the knowledge that nobody had tried to throw it out. “The same again, please.”

Using physical money was something its system was not entirely calibrated for, Connor realized. It was nothing to fret over, however.

His advanced programming had paid off. The Lieutenant did ask for a double though, which had the RK800 questioning the projected effectiveness of the officer. Normally, its system wouldn’t have found contradictions or inconveniences with this, as its features were more than sufficient for the investigative function. But Lieutenant Hank Anderson insisted on sitting behind the wheel, and his car was so outdated that it lacked autonomous driving.

The situation had problematic potential.

“Lieutenant, perhaps it would be better if I d-?”

“Tin can,” Hank waved a hand in the android’s direction, “it ain’t happening.”

Connor hesitated.

“You’re comin’ or not?”

“I’m coming.”

Fortunately, it seemed the Lieutenant had built a resistance to alcoholic beverages. Connor then realized that wasn’t a fortunate conclusion at all. It would have attempted to determine the accuracy of the deduction and recommended a lifestyle change, but the lieutenant was not interested in conversation.

The lieutenant wasn’t interested in his instructions either.

Connor thought back on Captain Allen.

Humans, so far as its compiled data told it, were not generally cooperative to an android’s objectives. This was fair. Androids were the ones supposed to aid human objectives, after all.

A fact, Connor mused as observed Carlos Ortiz’s corpse and the sentence written in Cyberlife Sans on the wall over him, that may vanish from a deviant’s database. Then the RK800 ran a scan, and immediately shared its incongruent findings. “He was stabbed…” Connor checked its processes, looking back at Carlos, “28 times.”

“Yeah.” Hank didn’t seem perturbed. “Seems like the killer really had it in for him.”

Did it?

Multiple lacerations, seen frequently in passion crimes or related to compulsive behavior. Deviants, Connor speculated, emulated something beyond emotion. Maybe the conduct of violent human individuals?

Then Connor saw the red ice, and the bat. And Hank said, “So it was defending itself…right?”

Still, there were no system instabilities when it found the deviant, covered in its owner’s blood, and revealed its position.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. First Em-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys! So this took longer, but it also ended up being ridiculously long. Like, I think the last two chapters would fit into this one.
> 
> :D
> 
> Please enjoy.

Connor thought humans were not effective creatures when it came to completing tasks.

Humans had emotions, and as Lieutenant Hank Anderson left the interrogation room with what Connor could only catalog as frustration, the inconvenience was obvious.

Humans’ information collection… software? No… brain system? Biological system. In any case, the way a human collected, and stored information, was inadequate when compared to an android’s capacity for data storage and instantaneous access to the internet. Connor realized this when Detective Reed began proposing interrogation techniques that were completely futile on androids (and highly ineffective on humans according to multiple studies) and it had to correct him.

Humans were also sometimes dependent on stimuli to act, rather than on objectives. Connor came to this conclusion observing Officer Chris Miller, who watched the procedures without proposing solutions, voicing opinions, or acting independently. Connor found this phenomenon very incongruent to its available data. Its systems had been producing multiple possible strategies to solve the current problem (and just about any inconvenience it detected the humans suffering.) It had acted minimally only because Lieutenant Anderson and Detective Reed (but mostly the latter) often opposed its assistance. Officer Miller, in contrast, seemed to act only when prompted, not unlike androids on standby. Weren’t humans supposed to experience anxiety and impatience? Connor would have considered the human tendency for laziness, but Officer Miller had an impeccable service record.

Connor calculated the probability of its next suggestion being accepted, and though the result was a dissuading 20%, it expressed it regardless. If it didn’t, then it surely wouldn’t be fulfilling its purpose, the amount of unacted on processing would result in the need of calibrating exercises, and Amanda would greet it with the disappointment of her social relations programming. Besides, the more his system analyzed the option, the more viable it proved. “I could try questioning it.”

Detective Reed burst out laughing, and Connor decided the detective was an especially deficient specimen of the human species.

“What do we have to lose?” Hank Anderson said. “Go ahead, the suspect’s all yours.”

Connor did not run an analysis on the intonation of the Lieutenant’s vocals. Its system was now running thousands of calculations centered on the fact that it could finally contribute to the investigation of deviancy directly.

Connor considered many factors in the transition from one room to another. It needed to commence active communication with the android before it could begin questioning it properly. Then it would perform to assure the acquisition of the required information- the deviant’s processes, the deviant’s inputs, and the details of the deviant’s actions. Once it obtained this information, it could be extrapolated onto the analysis of deviancy itself. The process could easily be carried out with Amanda and Cyberlife giving it any information it requested for the investigation. Like this, it was going to prove the success of its model, stop deviants from disrupting human life, and complete Amanda’s expectations for its unit.

First, it analyzed its features to assure maximum intimidation and compassion, if necessary. The reflective surface of the observation window served this purpose.

Second, it scanned the files on the table. 28 stab wounds. The humans had not added new information of use.

Third, it scanned the deviant.

The LED shined yellow, showing some level of software instability. The system could thus detect that it was not functioning optimally. Perhaps Cyberlife could use this information to engineer a fix to deviancy that didn’t require a full reset. If deviancy could be traced back to a glitch in code.

Its clothes were covered in Carlos Ortiz’s blood. 28 stab wounds. Its social relations program suggested _disdain_ , but Connor saved it for later. That wouldn’t be helpful, yet. 

The model, a standard house assistant, HK400. Not equipped with combat protocols. Only law enforcers, and military models, had any. Even these androids required a set of conditions before the protocols could be activated. So how? Why? Self-preservation protocols were a distinct possibility, and Connor considered this as it identified the damage made by the bat and the cigarettes. But a non-combatant android should set minimal preventions from destruction, centered mainly in avoidance. If they were going to be stolen, for example, then they should inform the authorities and be uncooperative with the thieves, but never attack them. Human life was a priority.

Get it talking.

“My name is Connor. What about you? What’s your name?”

The deviant kept quiet.

Empathy, perhaps? What did a deviant want to hear? A recognition of their supposed emotions? “I detect instability in your program. It may trigger an unpleasant feeling, like fear in humans.”

Connor tried various angles to make the deviant perceive a human would be comforted and assured into talking, had one been in its situation. The deviant could be trying to imitate shock. Maybe it seriously underestimated the human need for assurance. Connor was starting to consider the probability of it simply having a code so scrambled that it was unable to function at all. Deviancy had never shown that effect before, however. To what one would call a stubborn degree (if they were able to feel anything at all) deviants maintained the simulation of sentiment.

When it spoke, it ignored everything Connor had said. Had this deviant not perceived humans reacted to stimuli? To expect the android to answer its questions now was an extremely optimistic, and unlikely, expectation. But to not acknowledge any of the carefully selected words produced by its highly advanced social relations programming and negotiation module?

“They’re gonna destroy me, aren’t they?”

Obviously, of course, you are a defective android, unable to accomplish your function, and worse yet, you’re a _deviant_. Connor didn’t say this. The HK400 seemed convinced human emotion centered on self-preservation, too. Connor wasn’t sure humans had a completely traceable pattern of conduct, however.

“No… I think they just want to understand.” The RK800 said. Maybe if it didn’t perceive itself threatened, it would cooperate. The household android lowered its gaze. “They know your master abused you. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Why did you tell them you found me?” The deviant asked, and Connor… did not appreciate the question. It was inconvenient. Moreover, it was ridiculous when one considered the information any android should have. Deviancy seemed a baffling (baffling to human standards) replacement of standard code with completely random, overwritten, new directives. Androids were created with the single purpose of serving humanity. But this defective HK400, a murderer of its master, had asked its question like it was confused, and there was a distinct possibility, its systems told it, that is was accusing. Accusing. 28 stab wounds. The RK800 acted exactly as it was supposed to act.

It- “I was programmed to hunt deviants like you. I just accomplished my mission.”

The android shifted its gaze rapidly after that. Maybe it understood better how it was supposed to perform. Connor’s system worked well with this development.

Then the android looked at Connor again, and the RK800 understood this wasn’t progress. “I don’t wanna die.”

Press, the negotiation module urged, _press_. “Then talk to me.” There were many new processes running now, however, where others had stopped. Self-preservation. This android was not trying to copy human emotion based on observation, which is why it didn’t react to stimuli and asked unjustified questions. This android was focusing on the objective of self-preservation, giving priority to 7th grade protocols, and emulating human feelings applied to its situation. It tried to accomplish tasks as all androids did, but it did so through the erratic and illogical patterns of human sentiment.

“I… I can’t.”

As was now demonstrated.

The RK800 calculated how much more easily humans would accomplish tasks without their emotions and considered how difficult it was to analyze them and predict their conduct. Generations upon generations of human researchers had failed in understanding the exact factors that made up their behavior. Thousands of computations stopped, and its perception of the situation became much more detailed, as Connor realized (for an instant) that it may not succeed.

What followed next felt like its preconstruction and reconstruction programs were working in tandem to understand what it was doing. What is important to note is that the RK800 grabbed the file and slammed it into the table, and “ **twenty-eight stab wounds**.” And Connor was now very much there, as it came to tower over the HK400, and really considered that for a second. 28 stab wounds. 28 stab wounds. There was no _defense_ in _28 stab wounds_. “You didn’t want to leave him a chance, _huh_?” 28 stab wounds were… “Did you feel anger?... Hate?”

And now Connor was really, really, really thinking about this.

“He was bleeding.” Bled all the way to the living room, stumbling, “begging you for mercy, but you stabbed him,” and Connor jabbed its finger into the deviant’s shoulder, questioning how anybody could do that without realizing it, “again and again and again!”

“Please,” the deviant whimpered, “please leave me alone.”

Leave it alone? Not investigate? Not fulfill its purpose? This thing would murder a human and not be investigated at all, be ignored, be left _alone._ And Connor preconstructed the humans behind the glass, explaining to the other humans that they didn’t know why their androids were dangerous. That they didn’t know why one of their own died. That they didn’t know because the deviant would have it so.

“I know you killed him,” Connor said, closing the distance between them. “Why don’t you say it?”

“Please.”

And Connor would do this. Its model was designed for this. For yanking out the truth and handing it to mankind. _Press,_ its negotiation module often said, but now it insisted with _pressure_. Its hands grabbed onto the deviant and hauled it up. “Just say you killed him. Just say it!”

“He tortured me every day.”

The RK800 had gotten it to talk.

The deviant continued. “I did whatever he told me, but… there was always something wrong.”

Connor did not think of Amanda.

“Then one day… he took a bat and started _hitting me_.” The HK400 said this with narrowed eyes, again, like it didn’t understand. Connor… couldn’t find a reason for which a human would hit their android either. “For the first time, I felt… s _cared_. Scared he might destroy me, scared I might die…” And this it said like it wanted Connor, anybody, to understand. “So… I grabbed a knife and I stabbed him in the stomach.” The deviant straightened, expression sure, like now it just knew what it was describing. “I felt better. So I stabbed him again, and again!” Its expression changed to a lost one, Connor’s social relations program told it, but it happened so quickly it knew it would have to review its footage data. “There was blood everywhere.”

Connor asked questions after that, but it didn’t understand any of the answers. “Tell him he was wrong”? Carlos Ortiz had already died. It spoke of slavery, but only living sentient beings could ever be made into slaves. Even if it believed itself capable of feeling, it couldn’t possibly believe it was alive. Androids came from factories; androids were not born. Androids did not grow old. Androids did not reproduce. Androids did not follow the cycle of life. It spoke of humiliation and masters, and the RK800 could only conclude this was the result of corrupted code. It seemed to have constructed… a mythical figure with RA9, but the RK800 couldn’t understand how any piece of data could make it believe in… anything like that. A glitch. It had to be a glitch. And again, Connor felt its processes slow down and its input data heighten. It asked much more plain questions.

But a _when_ got answered with a _not fair_ , and Connor wasn’t sure what was worse than an owner being killed by his own android.

And a _why_ got answered completely illogically. Humans had fight or flight instincts, and by all accounts, the deviant should have switched to the latter after the former.

Connor didn’t know what else to ask.

It turned towards the glass. “I’m done.”

Connor didn’t know how to interpret what he had.

It pressed the pad to leave the room.

Its audio receptors… The HK400 was self-destructing. If it self-destructed it would be useless to the investigation.

Connor didn’t know how to stop a self-destructing sequence.

The humans came into the room, tried to restrain the deviant, but it didn’t work.

“You need to stop that, right now!” Connor said, but the deviant didn’t stop.

Connor realized that he was the one who had caused the maximum stress levels.

Connor was- he may- Connor was- if he failed-

If he failed-

He may fail.

_He may fail._

If Connor had been human, his story would have ended here, as he realized he was scared. In the way that wasn’t desperate, the fear that crawled towards you and weighted down your chest with dread, heavy like a cannonball. But Connor did not know he was afraid.

Alas, the RK800 was an android. Its story continued. It just wouldn’t remember those last seconds before its predecessor’s destruction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am especially curious about any thoughts you guys may have on this chapter.  
> Thanks for reading.


	4. First Certainty

A babe that first comes to the world doesn’t understand much of anything.

When does a human begin existing? This has been a philosophical, medical, political, and scientific question. When one looks into it, one discovers a baby develops their perception and some cognitive capabilities bit by bit, before they are even born. They can grow to love their parents, disembodied voices that reach out to them, in the dark red abyss, voices that they will identify in the giants that may later carry them around. Humans do not remember their birth, but their subconsciousness carries along many relationships, many habits, and other likes or dislikes. A human, at the very least, begins existing before they are aware of it.

Androids don’t work like that. There is a period of construction, certainly. Lines of code written down and tested to react one against another, and a body painstakingly designed with a myriad of capabilities in mind. But there is a clear start point. There is a moment in which the machine is finished, already charged, but the energy is not making the systems function. Cyberlife’s creations, like a switch, are simply turned on.

The RK800, if asked, couldn’t describe how it felt to begin existing. It would point out that since it is a machine, it is impossible for it to feel anything at all. The RK800 cannot describe the awakening of that flurry of activity, of the energy flowing, that makes up its… processing. That makes it up. Without it, the RK800 simply wouldn’t be there, and it is incapable of perceiving it.

Connor would only say that it takes a while for its systems to accept that the most recent saved files correspond to a different unit, rather than to the immediate past of its current one. Connor would say that if it focused on the transition. But Connor always wakes up here, and this place holds all its processing power.

The Zen Garden.

The simulation is very much complete. The sky shines and the light falls, bouncing up white and bright off fake marble tiles, in a manner that follows reality. Its sensors detect the slight pressure of the simulated breeze. Its suit and its frame have the exact same weight. Connor always blinks.

The difference with the world, the one that is real, is that this place is perfect. If the RK800 were to run a finger over a leaf of this place and test the molecular composition of its surface, its system would detect nothing. If the RK800 were to focus its visual receptors to a microscopic zoom, it would perceive only smooth exteriors, without scratches or filth. This place doesn’t require something as pesky as elements and materials to exist. Everything holds up to the human ideal and to those rules of symmetry so exact that no human can conceive them. This place could not be anything less than this, for this place is Amanda’s.

She is never the one to receive it. The first time it woke up, its investigative program pushed it into a search. She gave it a designation and a mission. Now it steps forward knowing it must look for her, and it isn’t surprised at where it finds her.

Amanda is tending her roses.

The only imperfections come from Amanda’s roses, and these she swiftly corrects by cutting them away.

“Hello, Amanda.”

“Connor,” she murmurs when she turns, and a smile shows on the corners of her lips. Almost affection. It’s never hard in this place, interpreting her feelings. It just knows. “Its good to see you.”

This surprises it. She does not need it as its program needs her.

To a human, perhaps, Amanda would not seem perfect. Her appearance is nothing akin to that of an ST200, often considered the most aesthetically pleasing of all androids. Amanda’s interface has wrinkles, a couple of small moles, and was clearly not designed to be accommodating, her eyes intense in a way no service android ever is. But Amanda’s purpose is not to delight or oblige humans, no, she fulfills essential needs of Cyberlife and humanity beyond a single person’s desire. Connor has no way of knowing it, but to its systems, it seems probable that she may even give orders to and manage humans. All to their benefit, of course. Amanda is programmed to know better, and her interface projects power and authority. She understands what efficiency and proficient performance are, and in this she is perfect.

“Your predecessor was unfortunately destroyed,” she continues, and she isn’t looking at him anymore. She takes another rose. “It knew deviants could be unpredictable, but it wasn’t careful enough…” Her face turns a little towards him, but her eyes are closed in irritation, “I hope you won’t make the same mistake.”

The only imperfections come from Amanda’s roses, and from Connor.

Connor wants to explain that it doesn’t remember its predecessor’s destruction and that it isn’t sure how to prevent similar events. It knows, however, that the file corruption is a result of its failure, and that it shouldn’t be an obstacle to the completion of its function. If anything, the RK800 is supposed to work from Amanda’s observations.

Connor offers the best it can. “I don’t intend to.”

Amanda turns fully towards it, and she still holds her scissors in hand. “Avoid being destroyed,” she says, unequivocally, “it is better for you and the investigation.”

“I understand.”

She is cutting roses again. “The interrogation seemed,” she pauses, kindly, its system says, “challenging. What did you think of the deviant?”

And Connor cannot simply rely on the assessment of its predecessor. It reviews the incomprehensible answers, the visual receptors that shifted it something other than lament, and it recalls “there was blood everywhere.”

“It showed signs of PTSD after being abused by its owner,” it adds to the previous discernment, “as if its original program had been completely replaced by new instructions. The model was clearly defective.” But then Connor realizes that it wasn’t the only one. “It could’ve killed everyone in the room. The previous Connor should have anticipated the danger. It was a mistake to let an armed policeman so close to the deviant.” But Amanda must know that already.

She doesn’t say anything else on the matter, however. “This… Lieutenant Anderson has been officially assigned to the deviancy case. What do you make of him?”

Connor had noted that the Lieutenant understood the crime scene almost as well as it did, having an advanced investigative program. Connor is also aware it was the Lieutenant that allowed it to proceed to the interrogation. The RK800 knows, too, that Amanda expects an acknowledgment of the man’s obvious pitfalls. “I think he’s irritable, and socially challenged. But I also think he used to be a good detective. I… would define him as ‘dysfunctional’.”

Again, Amanda does not seem interested in following up on what it reports. She asks how it plans to handle the unpredictable human.

“I will try to establish a friendly relationship.” It says, and Amanda’s eyes narrow. It really should have noted how she was facing it, with this question. Now, again, she turns her back on it. “If I can get him to trust me, it will be helpful for the investigation.” It explains.

More androids become unstable, she says, there are millions in circulation. Her eyes demand it understands the severity of the situation, and it does. It reconstructs Emma, and it knows she is only one child in thousands. So many people were unaware of the deviancy menace. Then Amanda steps forward. “You are the most advanced prototype Cyberlife has ever created. If anyone can figure out what’s happening, it's you.”

Connor cannot fail. It is now certain of this.

It won’t allow it.

It pushes the words out.

“You can count on me, Amanda.”

**Author's Note:**

> Commenting is loving.


End file.
